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Public Management Review
ISSN: 1471-9037 (Print) 1471-9045 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpxm20
Sustainability reporting by local governments: a
magic tool? Lessons on use and usefulness from
European pioneers
Ludger Niemann & Thomas Hoppe
To cite this article: Ludger Niemann & Thomas Hoppe (2018) Sustainability reporting by local governments: a magic tool? Lessons on use and usefulness from European pioneers, Public Management Review, 20:1, 201-223, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2017.1293149
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2017.1293149
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Published online: 01 Mar 2017.
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Sustainability reporting by local governments: a magic
tool? Lessons on use and usefulness from European
pioneers
Ludger Niemann aand Thomas Hoppe b
aDepartment of Governance and Technology for Sustainability (CSTM), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands;bDepartment of Multi-Actor Systems (MAS), Technical University of Delft, Delft, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
A growing number of city governments worldwide engage in sustainability report-ing, voluntarily and responding to legal pressures. Diverse practices emerged based on unique choices concerning formats, periodicity, authorship and dissemination efforts. Such design questions and associated outcomes are highly relevant for practitioners yet unaddressed in standard guidelines and most prior research that primarily concern content and conjectured reporting benefits. This article presents a framework suited to assessing real-life practices and outcomes. An exploratory evaluation in Amsterdam, Basel, Dublin, Freiburg, Nuremberg and Zurich suggests that sustainability reporting can benefit organizational change, management and communication yet also lead to‘fatigue’ and discontinuation.
KEYWORDSSustainability reporting; local governments; integrated reporting; sustainability indicators; GRI
Introduction
It’s great to have an absolutely rigorous reporting framework. The only problem is they’re useless unless somebody uses them.
– Civil servant, Dublin City Council (I.16)
Sustainability reporting is on the rise throughout the public sector. International frameworks such as the United Nations’ ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (specifi-cally SDG target 12.6) call for increased reporting by all types of institutions. In the
European Union, a recent directive (2014/95/EU) requires all large‘public interest
entities’ to start disclosing ‘non-financial and diversity information.’ France recently mandated all municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to
periodi-cally produce sustainability reports (CGDD2012), and similar legislation is mooted
elsewhere.
Proponents of reporting applaud this trend, with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as the internationally most influential institution. Media coverage can be emphatic too: referring to the positive experience of Amsterdam and other cities,
one news article claims that‘a commitment to sustainability reporting is a vital step
towards creating vibrant cities’ (Ballantine 2014, 4). According to their prefaces,
CONTACTLudger Niemann ludger.niemann@cantab.net
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and
repro-duction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
VOL. 20, NO. 1, 201–223
sustainability reports generally serve ambitious objectives targeting multiple
audi-ences. The mayor of the German city of Freiburg, for example, writes that ‘this
sustainability report, presented to the municipal council and the public, serves in conjunctions with the municipal budget as an important management instrument for
sustainable urban development’ (Freiburg Municipality2014, 3). In analogy to‘magic
concepts’ such as accountability and governance that are popular in public
manage-ment (Pollitt and Hupe 2011), sustainability reporting is thus often portrayed as a
magic, ‘jack of all trades’ tool simultaneously fostering better policymaking and
citizen engagement.
What is the evidence for reporting being an effective, multi-purpose, universally applicable way of promoting sustainability, both inside and outside of local govern-ments? There are conjectural statements about various positive effects (e.g.
Lamprinidi and Kubo 2008) but also warnings: in the private and public sector,
some critics fear‘accountingization’ where sustainability reports are merely ‘an outlet
for“greenwashing” or a source of “managerialist” information’ (Dumay, Guthrie, and
Farneti 2010, 543) that ‘may reinforce business-as-usual and greater levels of
un-sustainability’ (Milne and Gray2013, 13). In a less extreme scenario, reporting may
lack or lose its benefits; as evident from this article, in some cities, sustainability reporting was started with enthusiasm but later stopped following what practitioners
describe as‘reporting fatigue.’
Surprisingly, academic literature shows little consideration for these real-world phenomena. Most studies explore why organizations decide to become reporters and
what kind of information they typically‘disclose,’ implicitly assuming that
transpar-ency and thus reporting is worth pursuing. In sustainability reporting research, few
studies address processes, and too easily the question of ‘how’ gets a response in
terms of a‘why’ (Stubbs and Higgins2014). Recognizing the need for reflection, this
journal published in 2012 the assertion that ‘research which simply focuses on
enhancing public sector reporting practices without a broader theoretical engagement
in the social and organizational context of the public sector is likely to be misguided’
(Lodhia, Jacobs, and Park2012, 645). Arguably, sustainability reporting risks‘merely
exacerbating the already overwhelming amount of disclosure provided without
add-ing further insight’ (S. Adams and Simnett2011, 294) if negative outcomes such as
‘information overload’ (de Villiers, Rinaldi, and Unerman2014) remain ignored.
This article responds to calls for context-sensitive, process and outcome-oriented research by investigating the use of sustainability reporting by local governments from a longitudinal perspective. Building on evaluation research (Weiss,
Murphy-Graham, and Birkeland 2005), we developed a framework designed to analyse
different reporting practices and explored those developed by six pioneering cities in Europe since 2004. This study thus pursues the following overall research question: How have sustainability reporting practices evolved in pioneering European local governments, and what are their effects?
This article is organized as follows: section ‘Sustainability reporting by local
governments’ contains a review of research on sustainability reporting by local
governments. Section ‘A framework to study reporting practices and outcomes’
introduces a framework designed to assess the use of sustainability reporting by
local governments. Section‘Research method’ addresses research methods including
case selection criteria. Section ‘Results from six cities’ presents the results of the
concludes with a discussion of the results and the formulation of hypotheses for future research.
Sustainability reporting by local governments
It has been observed that the concept of sustainability has ‘saturated the modern
world’ whereas ‘sustainability practices for public services have been neglected by scholars and others as a subject of theoretical research and in-depth investigation’
(Guthrie, Ball, and Farneti2010, 450). External reporting is one core feature– along
with the performance measurement and accruals accounting – of many reform
processes of the recent decades (Marcuccio and Steccolini 2009). The focus on
reports has also been fuelled by increased attention (from policymakers and
research-ers) to accountability (Bovens2005; Willems and Van Dooren.2012). In fact, external
reporting arrangements are likely to feature in any performance management or
public accountability discussion (Downe et al.2010).
Given the popularity of both sustainability and external reporting, it may come as
no surprise that the conceptual joint venture of‘sustainability reporting’ has become
influential. In the public sector, however, the phenomenon is not easy to study. To begin with, the term sustainability reporting has two key meanings: (i) producing reports yet also (ii) disclosing information. This dual meaning stands at the root of two major lines of research with different conclusions: firstly, when assessing the
prevalence of reports, a common observation is that‘the uptake, forms and practice
of sustainability reporting among public agencies is still in its infancy compared to
the private sector’ (Lamprinidi and Kubo2008, 328); when studying mere disclosure,
scholars praise increasing compliance rates (Navarro Galera et al. 2014; Williams,
Wilmshurst, and Clift2011).
The search for disclosure– detecting the presence of desired indicators in
institu-tional communications – has become the dominant research paradigm. A recent
review of 178 studies concerning private and public-sector reporting classified 58 per
cent as applying a form of document analysis (Hahn and Kühnen.2013). Our review
of the literature focusing on local governments produced a similar picture (see Table 1).
In the private sector, sustainability reporting is often attributed to the objective of
maintaining a ‘social licence to operate,’ and public-sector sustainability reporting
research also refers to legitimacy-seeking behaviours. Various studies listed inTable 1
affirm that local governments generally have institutional and political motives to
adopt reporting practices, ‘mimicking managerial manners’ (Marcuccio and
Steccolini 2005). Cities are keen to strengthen their credentials as being‘green’ and
‘smart’ to gain a ‘competitive edge in the global knowledge economy’ (Yigitcanlar and
Lönnqvist2013).
In the times of ‘open data,’ however, local government disclosure takes place
via different media (print or electronically), different documents (e.g. plans, reports, policy papers), at different intervals, and may be a stand-alone activity or part of a larger process. Furthermore, indicators can be used descriptively or with performance-oriented targets and rankings, which has profound
manage-ment implications (Behn 2003). Therefore, studying mere disclosure faces ceiling
effects and loses analytical power as it eschews the question of organiza-tional use.
Table 1. Recent studies concerning sustainability reporting by local governments. Reference Study object Data collection Main results Marcuccio and Steccolini ( 2005 ) 12 Italian local authorities • Interviews • Growth in reporting is ‘management fashion ’ • Reporting can be a tool for appearing innovative and progressive Guthrie and Farneti ( 2008 ) 7 Australian public organizations • Content analysis of disclosures • Reporting practices are diverse; the annual report is only one medium for disclosures Marcuccio and Steccolini ( 2009 ) 15 Italian local authorities • Analysis of social reports • No standard set of factors can explain differences in disclosure practices • Major driver: seeking of legitimacy Plawitzki ( 2010 ) German municipalities • Prevalence of reports • Six case studies • 80 German local governments have produced one or more reports • Reporting serves management functions, sometimes communication Williams, Wilmshurst, and Clift ( 2011 ) Australian local governments • Mail survey • Half of the respondents report on at least one sustainability domain • 40% of non-reporters indicate willingness to report in future Greco, Sciulli, and D ’onza ( 2012 ) 10 Italian and Australian city councils • Interviews with managers and accountants • City councils have a large degree of discretion on what to report • Some differences between countries appear related to cultural differences Goswami and Lodhia ( 2014 ) 4 Australian city councils • Content analysis of annual reports • No city council had stand-alone reports, many cover sustainability issues in annual reports • There is a need for a holistic, contextual reporting framework addressing local issues Alcaraz-Quiles, Navarro-Galera, and Ortiz-Rodríguez ( 2014 ) 55 Spanish towns • Disclosure of GRI indicators on websites • Regression analysis on 13 factors • Disclosure driven by individual interests of managers and policymakers Navarro Galera et al. ( 2014 ) 33 European local governments • Content analysis of websites • Local governments are reasonably transparent • No link between disclosure and (financial) development
The alternative of researching the production of reports– as opposed to
informa-tion – is challenging too. How many local governments have sustainability reports?
This is difficult to answer in the absence of straightforward conceptual boundaries on
what constitutes sustainability reporting. While some documents labelled
‘sustain-ability reports’ are little more than indicator tables, others are extensive accounts of
trends, actions and plans. Putative sustainability reports may carry idiosyncratic titles
such as ‘City X – Progress Account.’ Standardized frameworks – for example, the
GRI’s guidelines that are widely used by companies – have failed to catch on among
local governments whose reports show considerable diversity without recurring to the
GRI (Williams, Wilmshurst, and Clift 2011). GRI estimates to have information on
about half of all reports applying its guidelines (personal communication, 7 April
2015). The GRI’s publicly accessible registry (http://database.globalreporting.org)
currently lists 450‘public agencies’ – mainly public enterprises – and about 50 cities
including Melbourne in Australia and Incheon in South Korea. With reporting remaining voluntary in most countries, there are no reliable registries nor estimates
of reporters. Presumably the vast majority of the world’s local governments has never
(consciously) engaged in sustainability reporting yet some ‘early adopters’ have
multi-year experience.
Furthermore, distinguishing ‘reporters’ from ‘non-reporters’ becomes even more
difficult when organizations forgo distinct reports while rather including sustain-ability considerations into their general reporting cycle. Advocates of integrated
reporting– designated IR by the International Integrated Reporting Council (2008)
– herald this approach as an effective way to increase the relevance of sustainability
information for decision makers. The aim is to promote‘integrated thinking’ and to
overcome duplications and ‘silo thinking’ by integrating information systems of
internal and external reporting (Stacchezzini, Melloni, and Lai2016). Early
discus-sions included the idea for an organization’s integrated report to be a high-level
overview yet the current IR framework proposes replacing other forms of reporting
(de Villiers, Rinaldi, and Unerman 2014). Critics ironically dub IR the ‘new holy
grail’ (Milne and Gray 2013) and talk of ‘capture’ by the accounting profession
(Flower2015) yet it is increasingly popular among companies and also influencing
the public sector (Bartocci and Picciaia2013). As with sustainability reporting, most
academic studies have explored determinants of IR adoption. Thus focusing on the ‘icing rather than the cake,’ ‘only a few papers attempt to assess the consequences
(costs and benefits) of integrated reporting’ – Perego, Kennedy, and Whiteman (2016,
6) therefore argue that quantitative studies based on publicly available data are inadequate and call for more qualitative research. In the words of Mitchell, Curtis,
and Davidson (2008, 68), ‘We must look beyond what is presented in reports, and
evaluate the impact on those involved in the process of reporting.’ Specifically for
local governments, research is required to understand which type of sustainability reporting leads to which type of short-term and long-term benefits and constraints. Moreover, research requires context-sensitivity: a recent meta-analysis of social accountability mechanisms concluded that ostensibly identical tools (e.g. participa-tory monitoring) can be effective or not depending on how they are embedded in
local policies, and thus only‘the subnational comparative method can reveal patterns
of variation that otherwise would be hidden by homogenizing national averages’ (Fox
A framework to study reporting practices and outcomes
Researching the local use and usefulness of sustainability reporting requires appro-priate models and methods. Since no single theoretical framework is able to cover the
range of reporting practices (Marcuccio and Steccolini 2009), we seek to make a
contribution by constructing a theoretical framework that facilitates the understand-ing of reportunderstand-ing outcomes. For this purpose, we draw on relevant literature and guidelines about reporting contexts, features, processes and outcomes.
Concerning contexts, a first observation is significant diversity: Local governments share the fact of governing limited, subnational geographical areas such as towns or counties yet this takes place in different economies, cultures, environments, legal systems, etc. In the sphere of sustainability management there are thus important debates about the appropriateness of developing standardized as opposed to context-specific approaches and
tools (e.g. Moreno Pires, Fidélis, and Ramos2014; Joss et al.2015). Concerning
sustain-ability disclosures by local governments, research points to the influence of administrative cultures and data availability (e.g. Alcaraz-Quiles, Navarro-Galera, and Ortiz-Rodríguez
2014; Krank, Wallbaum, and Grêt-Regamey 2010), making it plausible that reporting
practices too are influenced by such macro-contextual differences.
As for reporting features, since the 1990s, the notion of the‘triple bottom line’ has
been popular and implies the idea that sustainability reports provide information on environmental, social and economic matters (de Villiers, Rinaldi, and Unerman
2014). In 2005, the GRI launched sustainability reporting guidelines for the public
sector that suggest addressing three information types, namely organizational
per-formance, public policies and contextual issues. Figure 1 illustrates these with
examples.
For the GRI,‘The focus is to provide reporting guidance on the first and second type of information, as the third type of information is often included in other types
of reports’ (Global Reporting Initiative2005, 5). Reporting thus on organizational
performance rather than on wider, city-level indicators is plausible for many
public-sector organizations such as utilities or universities. After all, it is‘unrealistic to hold
agencies accountable for achieving outcomes that are largely affected by forces
out-side the organization’s control’ (Pitts and Fernandez2009, 403). By the same token,
disregarding‘state of the environment’ monitoring is unsatisfactory for governments
as they are organized along jurisdictional lines and enjoy certain control.
While the GRI framework is about retrospective reporting, failing to address the time dimension beyond comparing a report to the previous one (Lozano and
Huisingh 2011), the IR framework also requires forward-looking projections and
targets (Stacchezzini, Melloni, and Lai2016). This implies another information type,
labelled‘outlook,’ and implicitly addresses the question of periodicity. In the private
sector, both financial and sustainability reports are usually published annually, strengthening the case for their integration, yet this is no necessity. Many local governments in Germany issue sustainability reports at multi-year intervals
(Plawitzki2010).
Concerning non-manifest aspects of reporting, practitioners face essential design choices. Who should be involved, what should those involved be doing and what
process should they follow (Mitchell, Curtis, and Davidson2008)? For these process
questions, normative frameworks offer little guidance. Sustainability reporting as promoted by the GRI recommends the participation and targeting of a wide
stake-holder audience, while IR has a narrower focus on providers offinancial capital (C.
A. Adams2015). The latter may be inappropriate for the public sector (Bartocci and
Picciaia 2013); for local governments, key stakeholders relevant for reporting
mini-mally include civil servants, politicians and the public. Another process feature
concerns external auditing which according to some authors‘should be a permanent
element of every sustainability report’ (Greiling and Grüb2014, 220). The evidence
base for this assertion is, however, scarce. Most extant research eschews the ‘black
box’ of organizational processes (Perego, Kennedy, and Whiteman 2016).
As for outcomes associated with reporting, normative frameworks extol the
positive – GRI guidelines do not identify costs but list multiple benefits including
enhanced ‘intra- and inter-departmental coordination,’ ‘operating efficiency’ and
‘participation by various stakeholders in decision making and governance’ (GRI
2005). Integrated reporting implicitly alludes to potentially negative outcomes when
promising to stop‘numerous, disconnected and static communications’ (IIRC2008,
2). IR thus draws attention to information needs and uses, an issue often neglected in
transparency agendas. ‘The more information there is in a report about individual,
social, environmental and economic impacts, policies and practices, the greater is the
likelihood of information overload for readers’ (de Villiers, Rinaldi, and Unerman
2014, 1045). Evidently, sustainability reporting may have unintended consequences.
With the introduction of reporting, some non-profit organizations apparently
experi-enced that‘morality was replaced by the financial bottom line’ (Dumay, Guthrie, and
Farneti2010, 534).
Some scholars distinguish informative and transformative reporting impacts; the latter is about external, communicative and the former about internal, managerial
benefits of sustainability reporting concern organizational issues (see Lamprinidi and
Kubo2008), it appears expedient to conceptualize these in more detail. In this regard,
a framework used in evaluation research that distinguishes three types of information
use produces worthwhile insights. According to its main proponents,‘Instrumental
use is presumed to yield decisions of one kind or another. Conceptual use yields ideas and understanding. Political use yields support and justification for action or no
action’ (Weiss, Murphy-Graham, and Birkeland 2005, 14). This typology allows the
clustering of manifest impacts whilst also paying attention to the‘politics of
policy-making’ (Bauler2012). In their prefaces to sustainability reports, for example, mayors
commonly express the wish to promote accountability, yet beyond such socially
valued aims, any publication can also be used as ‘ammunition’ in political debates
(Lyytimäki et al.2013). Since‘use’ connotes intentionality, some researchers suggest
also probing for information ‘influence,’ noting that use does not imply influence,
and influence does not require conscious use (Lehtonen, Sébastien, and Bauler2016).
Table 2juxtaposes three main uses, influences and outcomes of sustainability report-ing with associated stakeholders, acknowledgreport-ing that this is a simplification of complex matters. There is evidence of (public sector) sustainability reporting leading to organiza-tional learning, facets of improved management, and positively valued communication
with outside audiences (e.g. S. Adams and Simnett 2011). One might argue that
sustainability reports can also foster learning or decision-making among citizens; after all, some mayoral prefaces profess that wish. Prior research on local government reports,
however, found negligible citizen uptake (Steccolini2004). It has been asserted that‘as
far as the public is concerned, the publication of performance data in annual reports and government white papers is for the most part equivalent to putting a message in a bottle
and throwing it into the sea’ (Pollitt 2006, 52). Concerning external audiences, the
agenda-setting influence of reporting is more plausible. Table 2further addresses the
observability of outcomes, which we rated as generally low for internal ones and very low for external ones. This conjectural assessment, informed by the literature (e.g.
Sébastien and Bauler2013), serves to highlight the complexity of researching the effects
of sustainability reporting. Most organizational changes and learning processes are incremental and influences on external stakeholders highly ephemeral, necessitating
qualitative research methods (Perego, Kennedy, and Whiteman2016).
In summarizing the literature and concepts introduced so far, we posit that three main factors (roughly corresponding to independent variables) influence the effects of sustainability reporting by local governments: (i) context, (ii) reporting features and (iii) process characteristics. Concerning (ii) features, the three information types proposed by the GRI (context, policies, organizational performance) plus outlook derived from IR constitute relevant constructs; for (iii) processes, prior literature lends face validity to the distinction of organizational involvement, political efforts and dissemination strategies. Finally, adding organizational change, management and communication as outcome-oriented research categories (dependent variables) leads
to the assessment framework presented inFigure 2.
Research methods
To test the assessment framework, we applied it to real-world practices. In light of evidence that the adoption of reporting is influenced by short-lived fashions
where sustainability reporting was developed over longer periods. The purposeful
selec-tion of ‘early adopters,’ ‘frontrunners’ and ‘reporting champions’ as cases is a
well-established methodological choice (e.g. Bebbington, Higgins, and Frame 2009; C. A.
Adams and Frost2008). Our main selection criteria thus were the implementation of
sustainability reporting over several years and positive appraisal from researchers, peers or the awarding of public prizes. To ensure a minimum and comparative level of administrative capacities, we chose to focus on European cities with at least 100,000
inhabitants. The six Dutch, German, Irish and Swiss cities presented in Table 3were
identified via the literature (seeTable 1), report registries including the GRI’s, and by
consulting experts in international organizations including GRI and ICLEI.
To explore the context, history, emergent practices and effects of sustainability
reporting in accordance with the theoretical framework (Figure 2) required
apply-ing mixed research methods. As virtually all outcome areas includapply-ing organizational
change and agenda-setting are not directly observable (cf. Table 2), we applied a
Figure 2.Assessment framework linking reporting factors and effects.
Table 2.Outcomes associated with sustainability reporting. Perspective
Uses and influence
Associated outcomes, concepts
Typical stakeholders or target groups
Visibility of outcomes Internal Conceptual Organizational change
• Knowledge, ideas • Networks • Motivation • Efficiency
• Staff in local government
• and associated organizations • Low
Instrumental Management • Decision-making • Evidence-informed • policymaking
• Elected politicians
• Senior civil servants • Low External Political-symbolic Communication • Agenda-setting • Legitimacy, accountability • Justification for
(non)-action
• Citizens • Media • Businesses • Civil society groups
document analysis and exploited insights retrieved from key informants. In each city, semi-structured interviews were held with three types of informants: civil servants, elected politicians (mayor or city councillor) and academics or NGO representatives. Adding the GRI, nineteen interviews (each lasting 30–90 min) with twenty-one informants (numbered as I.1 to I.21) were held during visits and by telephone. All interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and key statements translated into English for interviews held in German and Dutch. Data were
collected and coded according to the assessment framework (Figure 2) and the
additional operationalization presented in Table 4. For each discernible reporting
practice, the first author qualitatively rated four reporting features, namely the comprehensiveness and quality of information concerning context, public policies, organizational performance and outlook. Further qualitative ratings were applied to the aggregate intensity of three process features (organizational involvement, poli-tical involvement and dissemination efforts) and the perceived strength of effects in three outcome clusters (organizational change, management, communication). The rating was omitted when interviewees lacked knowledge, for example, of processes dating 10 years ago.
This study design has evident limitations: from six, purposefully selected, diverse yet
well-resourced‘pioneers’ one cannot generalize findings to hypothetical ‘average local
governments.’ While the theoretical framework assumes the importance of context factors, the small case number did not allow exploring these in detail. The fact that cities were identified by name may have contributed to biased responses from key informants, though this risk was mitigated by triangulation strategies. Experimenting voluntarily with diverse strategies, local governments had little performance pressure, and inter-viewees expressed much openness to share shortcomings and critical reflections.
Results from six cities
The six analysed‘early adopters’ all initiated sustainability reporting voluntarily. Over
the years, each deliberately made different major design choices. This section presents a comparative assessment, starting with observations on features, processes and outcomes before identifying potential causal links.
At the level of reporting features, in four cities we identified one major practice such as tri-annual reports in Nuremberg and annual reports in Dublin. For Zurich, we distinguished two phases, as its local government initially published longer, multi-year reports before changing to shorter, annual ones. Amsterdam experimen-ted with various strategies including stand-alone sustainability reports, followed by the integration of sustainability indicators into its general (annual, financial)
state-ments, and the launching of a‘sustainability agenda.’ The last two instruments do
Table 3.Case study cities.
Country City Inhabitants Justification for case study selection Switzerland Zurich 401,000 Multiple reports since 2004
Basel 195,000 Multiple reports since 2005
Netherlands Amsterdam 830,000 Multiple reports since 2005; use of GRI
Germany Nuremberg 517,000 Multiple reports since 2009; positive evaluation by Plawitzki (2010) Ireland Dublin 1,270,000 Multiple reports since 2010; use of GRI
not represent typical sustainability reports; nonetheless, analysing them appeared vital to understand the evolving system. According to official documents,
Amsterdam will relaunch dedicated, annual sustainability reports to ‘enter into an
intensive dialogue with the city’ while ‘the financial statements can then focus on
managing on the basis of the results and targets’ (Amsterdam Municipality 2015,
60). In the six cities, we thus identified nine sustainability reporting practices that
are summarized in Table 5. Evidently, discerning reporting practices is not
clear-cut; in every local government, multiple reporting instruments exist in parallel and evolve over time.
Comparing features of stand-alone reports revealed diverse information quantities (e.g. documents with 31 pages in Zurich, 126 in Nuremberg), the absence of external auditing, and the predominance of own, tailor-made formats. Amsterdam (initially), Dublin and Freiburg made loose references to GRI guidelines yet all local govern-ments argued that no existing framework met their needs, prompting the develop-ment of their own formats. In the view of several key informants, comparisons and benchmarking were desirable but local relevance an overriding concern. In the words
of one civil servant (I.13),‘It’s good that there are no standardised indicator sets. At
most a menu makes sense where local governments can choose which indicators are
important for us.’
Table 4.Operationalization of research constructs.
Dimension Subdimension Coding and rating of evidence for: Information source Content Context • Indicators (e.g. CO2emissions) concerning the
jurisdiction
• Where useful: comparisons, benchmarks
• Analysis of published report
Public policies • Policies, investments under government control
• Desirable: analysis of impact of decisions Organizational
performance
• Organizational accounts (buildings, staff, etc.)
• Performance indicators, e.g. CO2emissions
of governmental buildings • Where useful: benchmarks Outlook • Upcoming plans and decisions
• Desirable: local agenda and targets Processes Organizational
involvement • Involvement of local government staff andother stakeholders • Interviews Political
involvement • Involvement of local government (senior)staff and city councillors • Interviews• Documents Dissemination
efforts • Launching events, media, Internet• Timing • Interviews• Communications Outcomes Organizational
change • Sustainability-related knowledge gains• Data management capacities • Internal and external collaboration • Staff morale
• Interviews
Management • Reference to reports and indicators in government plans
• Performance monitoring
• Interviews • Communications Communication • References in debates, publications
Media response • Information requests
• Emulation of reporting by other organizations
• Interviews, media statistics (if available)
Table 5. Comparative assessment of reporting features and perceived outcomes. Zurich Basel Amsterdam Nuremberg Dublin Freiburg Type Multi-year report Yearly report Multi-year report Multi-year report Section in annual report Multi-year ‘agenda ’ Multi-year report Yearly report Biannual report Report features Editions 2004, 2008 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 2005, 2010, 2013 2005, 2008 Since 2010 2015 2009, 2012 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 2014 Framework, format • Own •Printed +PDF • Own •Web only • Own • Printed + PDF • GRI-3 • Printed • Own •PDF • Own • Printed + PDF • Own •printed +PDF • Own (GRI index) • PDF only • Own (GRI index) • Printed + PDF External audit No No No No Yes (whole report) No No No No # of pages (last edition) 58 31 67 96 20 74 126 35 108 Content Context ++ + ++ 0 + + ++ ++ 0 Public policies + + ++ + + + ++ ++ ++ Organization performance + + + 0 + ++ + + ++ Outlook + 0 + + 0 ++ + + + Process Organizational involvement ?+ + ? 0 + + + + + Political involvement ? + ++ Council debate ? + ++ Council vote ++ Council debate ++ Dissemination efforts ++ Events + Internet + ? 0 ++ Events, media ++ Events, media ++ Internet 0 Outcomes Organizational change + (initially) 0 + (initially) ? 0 + ++ ++ ++ Management ? 0 0 0 + + + + ++ Communication + (initially) + 0 ? 0 ++ ++ ++ (initially) 0 Status Current situation Discontinued To be continued Discontinued; plan: integrated reporting Discontinued To be continued To be continued with yearly reports To be continued Discontinued To be continued Rating of content quality, level of involvement, and of perceived outcomes: ++ strong ;+ medium ;0 : weak ; with ? indicating insufficient evidence.
The analysis of content quality showed a mixed picture. Most reports addressed questions of context, public policies, organizational performance and outlook to some degree. In Zurich, switching from multi-year to annual reports brought reduced
coverage of context and outlook issues. Freiburg’s report stands out since it pays
detailed attention to (select) public policies and organizational performance while lacking city-level outcome indicators, a context feature common to most sustainabil-ity reports. From one edition to another, reports usually discuss long-term trends through a set of indicators (ranging from 21 in Basel to over 100 in Nuremberg). In
addition to such continuity in monitoring, Nuremberg’s reports contain changing
focus themes (e.g.‘education’).
The exploration of reporting processes showed that in most cities report writing was led by staff units that engaged other departments in indicator selection and the drafting of narratives. In some cities, external stakeholders were also consulted in the design stage (e.g. universities in the case of Zurich, Dublin and Freiburg). Generally, draft reports then underwent a screening process by political decision makers such as members of the municipal executive. In some cities, finalized reports were discussed in the municipal council, evidencing political involvement. In this context, exclusivity
plays a role– Freiburg stressed that its sustainability report, seemingly a stand-alone
document, was actually highly integrated into the policy cycle because councillors received it as sole annex to the (biannual) budget. According to a politician (I.2) from Amsterdam:
If sustainability reporting is separate, we will discuss it separately in the council. When reviewing the annual report, somebody might have a question about sustainability but the discussion will be about finances. Thus, a separate report gets more attention.
Interestingly, Basel opted for the contrary when its local government recently decided to discontinue sustainability reporting and merge it with general reporting. According to a Basel political executive (I.5),
In our system, we have departmental reports but they remain at the bottom of the drawer [. . .]. This is why we decided [. . .] to join cyclical assessments, planning, general reporting and sustainability reporting in a four yearly rhythm. [. . .] Of course, the danger of integration is that the‘flying altitude’ rises, with much more general, noncommittal accounts.
Contrary to practices elsewhere, Nuremberg’s report did not undergo extensive
internal vetting. In the words of a civil servant (I.13),‘These are the environmental
department’s analyses. Neither the mayor nor others ever objected. Our critical views
are backed up by indicators nobody can simply refute.’ Interestingly, reporting is thus
used politically within the collegiate as part of debates between the economics and environmental departments.
For the dissemination of reports, all local governments recently used websites and social media. Usually this involves making reports available for download (with
Dublin’s not existing in print); only Zurich visualizes its data on a dedicated
dash-board. Additional dissemination efforts varied significantly, as a civil servant (I.8) from one city explained:
For the first two reports, we did larger events [. . .], a media conference with councillors. We phased that out. Now our main motivation is actually an obligation– we can’t just leave the website unattended. In 2013 we wanted to do a public event but it was difficult to get attention. Which is understandable from the media perspective. The news value is not so large.
Regarding outcomes, it appeared that even though none of the local governments explicitly started sustainability reporting with the aim to learn from the writing process, such effects were evident in all cities. Key informants frequently mentioned more inspiration, motivation, cooperation and improved data management systems triggered by the inter-departmental elaboration of indicator sets and narratives.
According to one civil servant (I.13),‘It has been a lot of work to bring all indicators
together but when we produced Nuremberg’s first sustainability report it had a
resounding effect in Germany. We printed 1000 copies which were gone in no time.’
Unsurprisingly, there is tentative evidence for a link between organizational involvement and organizational learning. Freiburg officials, for example, mentioned improved morale resulting from extensive staff consultations. However, such rela-tionships appear to be non-linear. Several organizational benefits, for example, improved data management capacities and collegial contacts, were associated with the elaboration of a first report and not consecutive ones. Concerning outcomes in the sphere of management, stronger effects were observed in Amsterdam and Freiburg. In these cities, there is evidence of reports being actively used by decision makers. This appears to relate to the presence of two main content factors: targets and politically salient information. In Zurich, for example, politicians showed keen interest in a public perception survey (one of twenty-one sustainability indicators) as this reflects on voter opinions. However, one interviewee (I.8) also observed:
Setting targets is political. That needs to be backed up; we cannot do that as municipal administration. Even using a traffic light– we tried to discuss this in the steering group yet realised that this immediately leads to controversial discussions [. . .]. Our sustainability monitoring system is not the central management instrument of our city governments [. . .]. All departments have their own key indicators.
As for outcomes in the sphere of communication, most local governments lacked insights and relevant data (e.g. media statistics) about the reception of reports by external stakeholders. Only in Amsterdam, Dublin and Nuremberg there was anec-dotal evidence of active resonance among local audiences such as newspapers, businesses, NGOs or universities. In Dublin, Nuremberg and Freiburg, reporting triggered contact requests from many other cities, nationally and internationally. There is no evidence that any reporting methods were directly emulated in other cities or organizations. Some local governments received public recognition for their reporting, for example, Nuremberg in the awarding of the German Sustainability Prize.
Concerning negative outcomes, several cities experienced frictions when civil servants perceived report writing as a burden. Critically, in some cities including
Dublin and Zurich, key informants spoke of ‘reporting fatigue’; positive effects
associated with initial reports were perceived to wear out in the face of decreasing
internal ‘learning curves’ or reduced public interest. In the words of a Dublin civil
servant (I.16): ‘One of the first things about the high frequency is that it ends up
being a lot of work. Unfortunately, you end up repeating a lot of things. There’s no
new data. [. . .] There’s definitely the idea of consultation fatigue.’ Among the six local
governments studied, four (Amsterdam, Basel, Dublin and Zurich) discontinued or substantially changed their sustainability reporting practices due to dissatisfaction with the approach taken hitherto. This suggests that designing a reporting system with continued use and usefulness is no easy chore.
Among early adopters, Nuremberg’s strategy appeared most continuous. Its osten-sibly successful strategy, within its particular context, is the elaboration of extensive, low-periodicity reports with a fixed indicator set yet changing focus themes. A
Nuremberg politician (I.14) remarked:‘I am not a friend of yearly reporting because
especially the big issues– air quality, education – don’t change that quickly.’
At a macro level, Amsterdam’s experience and decision to develop several
sustain-ability-oriented planning and reporting instruments in parallel suggests that learning,
management and communication– and associated internal and external audiences –
require distinct strategies. This interpretation also fits Freiburg’s approach: its highly
complex sustainability report– initiated when accruals accounting and
performance-oriented budgeting became compulsory for local governments in this part of
Germany – implicitly targets councillors, not the public. In the words of a civil
servant (I.10),
We have excellent sectoral reports that go into detail. Our sustainability report can’t emulate this. [Its] contribution is to create an overall context [. . .] to stimulate ideas or to identify trade-offs and goal conflicts. For example, we all want to promote public transport and cycling, that’s a declared aim but also requires using space and cutting some trees [. . .]. We don’t have a red or green traffic light but want to show the municipal council its options for action.
Evidently, action orientation helps to increase salience of reports for specific target groups such as councillors. In this regard, political systems constitute an important
contextual factor. As a politician from Dublin (I.17) remarked, ‘In Ireland, the
amount of competencies of local government are fairly small. So one could have a
fairly incomplete picture if one only looked at the city council’s own activities.’
Discussion and conclusion
In response to our research question – how have sustainability reporting practices
evolved in pioneering European local governments, and what are their effects – this
study covering six cities in four European countries showed that various types of reporting can be valuable for local governments as a learning, management and communication tool. Financial costs can be very limited; some local governments do not even print their reports and rely only on electronic dissemination. There is evidence of organizational benefits, for example, concerning increased staff motiva-tion and data management capacities. This is noteworthy as internal changes were usually no explicit objective. This finding is in line with other studies, for example, the perception of sustainability reporting as a learning experience in universities
(Ceulemans, Lozano, and Alonso-Almeida. 2015) and of voluntary yet publicized
self-assessments stimulating sustainability policies among local governments
(Niemann, Hoppe, and Coenen 2016). Organizational outcomes, however, tended
to be strongest during the inception of sustainability reporting and to dissipate over time, while (continued) usefulness for management purposes and external commu-nication appeared more difficult to achieve. Various local governments experienced ‘reporting fatigue,’ leading to the discontinuation or radical altering of sustainability reporting practices.
This study’s findings tentatively suggest that meeting different information needs of different stakeholders requires smart strategies such as combining extensive,
multi-year reports with executive annual updates disseminated in various media. For some local governments studied, especially those producing stand-alone reports, the pur-suit of public legitimacy is an explicit objective, corroborating prior studies
(Marcuccio and Steccolini2009). In some cities, this endeavour is relatively
success-ful, with active dissemination efforts producing desired resonance (such as the launching of reports in public events). Various local governments, on the other hand, struggled to maintain public interest over time. This appears to relate to a lack of news value when repeated reports showed unchanged trends on descriptive indicators yet also to a lack of politically salient information. Most local governments meticulously vet narratives so as to accommodate diverging opinions. In one deviant
case, the published report is more outspoken and used for‘debates’ between
execu-tives. The space for such utilization appears to be influenced by political systems and
cultures (cf. Alcaraz-Quiles, Navarro-Galera, and Ortiz-Rodríguez 2014), with cases
in this study showing sub-national diversity in political embeddedness (cf. Fox2015).
Local governments tying sustainability to policy and budgetary cycles aim to inform management, and there is tentative evidence of this being effective. However, target-ing internal decision makers has consequences for the design and writtarget-ing style of
relevant documents – as also asserted elsewhere (Cohen and Karatzimas 2015),
sustainability reports geared towards managers are generally not attractive to citizens.
This suggests that sustainability reporting is no ‘magic tool’ simultaneously
ful-filling communication and management functions; instead, attempts to reach all
audiences with a single document are doomed to fail, ushering in ‘jackof all trades
– master of none.’ Simply calling for integrated, high-frequency, high-complexity reporting is misguided as there are trade-offs between conciseness and completeness
(cf. Perego, Kennedy, and Whiteman2016). In the words of one NGO representative
(I.12) interviewed:
If you have the ambition of achieving an integrated approach, you’ll quickly face unmanage-able amounts of data and thick reports nobody reads. Or you’re describing in one chapter what you’re doing against soil sealing, and in another [. . .] the shortage of housing, as if the two were not related. Then you have some cities that simply decide to zoom in on focus areas but are rightly challenged too. The crux is solving this tension between comprehensive and focussed.
As a matter of fact, integration can refer to several dimensions including report types, contents and internal processes, and sustainability reporting requires making choices for each. At the same time, many national statistics offices are mounting sophisti-cated dashboards that individual local governments need not compete with in terms of disclosing macro indicators. The growth of interactive, electronically linked sus-tainability reporting formats leads to yet more diverse uses by wide-ranging audi-ences. Facing these developments and choices, there is high demand for guidance that
current frameworks (e.g. GRI, IR) do not provide. The GRI’s focus on organizational
performance without considering territorial outcomes is unsatisfactory for (local) governments. For them, the linking of policies and actions to territorial outcomes constitutes the ultimate management and accountability demand.
Against this backdrop, the framework developed in this study– revolving around
the distinction of main contents (context, policies, performance and outlook), key
Table 6. Positive local government reporting practices. Dimension Subdimension Positive practices Examples Complexity Content Context • Indicator selection based on local priorities, documenting in report annex the relation (‘ comply or explain ’) to standardized sets (notably GRI, ISO 37120) • Dublin; Freiburg • Low • Long time series discussion of trends • Comparison of local scores to benchmarks (e.g. WHO air quality guidelines) and averages (similar cities) • Various • Low (provided local data available) Public policies • Identification and discussion of local government competences and spheres of influence • Zurich [2008]: matrix of influence • Low • Clear link (avoiding duplication) between sustainability reporting and other local government planning and reporting systems • Various • Medium • Analysis of choices for and impacts of decisions taken by local government in key policy areas • Freiburg • High Organization performance • Long time series; trends • Targets (short + long term) • Benchmarking with similar cities • Various • Medium Outlook • Local agenda with short-term and long-term targets and commitments (by local government and other stakeholders) • Amsterdam • High Processes Organizational involvement • Cross-departmental working groups for mutual learning • Minimization of additional workload (e.g. through collaboration with universities) • Smart periodicity (e.g. multi-year full reports plus shorter annual updates) to minimize fatigue • Various • Low Political involvement • Discussion, approval of reports in local government council • Various • Low Dissemination efforts • Media + Internet events for various target groups • Conscious timing of reporting (release) to maximize attention • Various • Low • Changing focus themes (in reports + accompanying events) • Nuremberg • Medium • Reports, visualizations and raw data on website • Zurich • Medium (Continued )
Table 6. (Continued). Dimension Subdimension Positive practices Examples Complexity Outcomes Organizational change • Self-evaluation (gains, suggestions for improvement) among report contributors and sample of staff • Various (including Basel Freiburg) • Medium Management • Self-evaluation (uses, suggestions for improvement) among decision makers Communication • Tracking of media references, downloads, etc. • Solicitation of feedback from citizens/report users on website • Sharing of experiences with other cities
dissemination) and three outcome clusters (organizational change, management and
communication)– is valuable for multiple audiences.
For practitioners, the framework is a point of departure to initiate or redesign sustainability reporting successfully. While the presence of trade-offs and our analysis
of a small while diverse set of front runners makes searching generalizable ‘best
practices’ inappropriate, this study uncovered many ‘good practices’ that practitioners
elsewhere will find inspiring. Table 6 identifies such practices in relation to our
research framework and case studies. The tentative rating of complexity (low/med-ium /high) serves to indicate ease of replicability. The selection of context indicators and compilation of relevant data, for example, is relatively straightforward and constitutes a recommendable practice for any city initiating sustainably reporting. Political target-setting and impact assessments of governmental decisions, on the other hand, are complex and require more skills and resources.
Regarding outcomes, Table 6contains the implicit recommendation for
sustain-ability reporters to self-evaluate. Simple satisfaction surveys among report contribu-tors and the monitoring of download statistics, for example, produce important feedback at hardly any cost. Researching the utilization of reports by various audi-ences is more complex yet may interest a local university, as happened in Basel. For
policymakers – including those contemplating mandatory municipal sustainability
reporting as in France, or subsidized voluntary reporting as in parts of Germany
(LUBW 2015) – the framework and evidence produced by this study will give
guidance about policy objectives and local government needs.
For researchers, the theoretical framework and major design choices identified in
this article – such as periodicity, information types, process arrangements – suggest
Table 7.Hypotheses for further research.
Factor Hypotheses Relevant case
Context • In consensus-oriented political systems, the room for sustainability reports to contain political analyses and targets is limited
• Zurich, Basel, compared to Nuremberg • The longer the term of councils or budgets, the lower the
advantages of frequent reporting • Freiburg • Demands for outcome-oriented budgeting create opportunities
to use sustainability indicators for management purposes • Freiburg • More limited municipal competences increase the demand for
distinct sustainability reports addressing outcomes in the city-at-large
• Dublin Content,
reporting features
• The inclusion of performance indicators and targets is associated with increased instrumental/management use
• Amsterdam, Freiburg • Over time, mere trend reporting based on descriptive indicators
leads to decreasing interest from internal and external audiences
• Zurich • Frequent, high content reporting with limited news value leads
to internal‘fatigue’ and decreased external interest • Dublin, Zurich • Comprehensive, high content reporting integrating financial
information is ineffective as external communication tool • Amsterdam Process • Organizsational involvement (e.g. collectively defining goals and
indicators) increases organizsational learning • Zurich, Freiburg,Nuremberg • The simultaneous yet exclusive launch of reports with
major lines of enquiry. In terms of sustainability reporting, we posit that the focus on disclosure as main research paradigm has had its day, and that more utilization- and impact-oriented studies are urgently needed. There is potential for increased mutual learning with the adjacent fields of performance management (see e.g. Navarro
Galera, Rodriguez, and López Hernández 2008) and city-oriented sustainability
monitoring (see e.g. Tanguay et al. 2010). Table 7lists a set of hypotheses derived
from this explorative study to inform further research.
In light of preliminary evidence that sustainability reporting by local governments can be beneficial at limited costs and risks, we conclude by calling for perseverant yet reflective experimentation. As a civil servant from Dublin (I.16) put it:
You have to say on the first day: We’re going to do five years of sustainability reporting and then evaluate. Just to create that expectation. Because it’s very hard to do a good job the first time. You have to learn the lesson.
Acknowledgements
We sincerely appreciate the open sharing of data and thoughts by all interviewed practitioners, institutional support provided by VNG International (The Hague), and feedback on the manuscript from anonymous reviewers and Larry J. O’Toole.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Ludger Niemannworks as Lecturer in International Public Management at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He holds degrees in Natural Sciences (Cambridge University), Psychology (Freiburg University) and Public Administration (Erasmus University Rotterdam), and is a PhD candidate at the University of Twente researching the use of sustainability indicators in Latin American and European cities.
Thomas Hoppeholds a master’s degree in Public Administration specializing in Public Policy and Environmental Policy, and a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Twente. Thomas’ research focus is ‘Governance of Energy Transitions’. Currently, he works as Associate Professor at the section of Policy, Organisation, Law and Gaming (POLG) within the Multi Actor Systems (MAS) department of the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management (TPM) at Delft University of Technology.
ORCID
Ludger Niemann http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6643-0033
Thomas Hoppe http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0770-4858
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